This is a polemic against misinformation. It was written post-Trump, and Trump informs and motivates a lot of it.
The author is retaliating against what he sees as the basic corruption of truth. We’ve arrived at a point in society where we can simply deny any truth that we don’t like and limit anyone’s right to disagree with us.
He claims we need a “Constitution of Knowledge,” which are a set of basic principles we agree on, like the ones we agreed on to start the country.
The author is gay and very prominent in the LGBT rights movement. I mention this because he mentions it, often, to provide context to some very conservative positions on “cancel culture,” and the Leftward leanings of academia. He’s furious about the suppression of conservative voices. He doesn’t agree with many of these voices, but he sees it as a basic violation of the Constitution of Knowledge. He claims it is “unconstitutional” to equate someone’s opinion with trauma.
I’ve read quite a few of these lately – The Scout Mindset and Calling Bullshit come to mind. They’re fun, and I nod my head a lot, but other than a motivational screed that encourages me to stand up for truth, I don’t know that they help a lot.
I had breakfast with a friend the other day, and he said “the biggest problem in America is that the Internet and social media are making people dumber and dumber every day, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to stop it.”
Indeed.
Book Info
Author
Jonathan Rauch
Year
Pages
280
Acquired
I have read this book. According to my records, I completed it on .
A hardcover copy of this book is currently in my home library.
This is the feminine version of the more rare “doyen,” which means: the senior member of a body or group a person considered to be knowledgeable or uniquely skilled as a result of long experience in some field of endeavor “Doyen” is Old French for “dean” which vaguely means leader.
This is quite a good book about the “safe space” concept, mostly at universities. It’s very similar to The Parasitic Mind or The Constitution of Knowledge . It fights back against three “untruths”: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker (it doesn’t) Always trust your feelings (don’t) Life is a...
It’s literally Latin for “under the rose.” I found a couple reasons why this implies secrecy (from American Heritage): From the practice of hanging a rose over a meeting as a symbol of confidentiality And where did this come from? According to Wikipedia : In Hellenistic and later Roman mythology,...
At first, I didn’t like this book, but it won me over in the end. At its heart, it’s about confirmation bias – how we defend our positions by acknowledge evidence in favor of them and ignoring or downplaying evidence against them. Galef calls this “the soldier mindset,” because we’re always...
A good examination of why people spit BS, and how to debunk it. It drifts into a standard list of cognitive fallacies and statistical mistakes somewhere in the middle. But still, it’s generally very good. The author makes a point that some people’s identity hinges on their BS (like any member of...
